1.12.0 Problems/Bugs

[morvael]

Yes, I'm not a fan of wildly random final CVs... Anything but not these to determine some effects or modifiers.

[morvael]

I believe base concept is fine and much needed. I'm also aware such a radical new rule will probably need a few tweaks, especially if it can be abused (like not placing respectable number of defenders in hex).

[GPT55]

ORIGINAL: morvael

Would like to get a save before the attack to see the wider picture.

Here is a dropbox link to a save at start of Soviet turn (I hope it works!)

Saved Game Link

The problem can be reproduced as follows:
- Load the saved game
- Move 9-14 unit from X89-Y46 to X88-Y48.
- Attack the 13=8 unit in X88-Y49 with the stack in X89-Y50.
The German unit retreats the wrong way every time I have tried it. In playing a couple of turns with the new version I have noticed several instances where German units preferred to retreat to an unoccupied hex in a Soviet ZOC over a German-occupied hex (less than 3 units) not in a Soviet ZOC. It appears to me it is avoiding retreating to German occupied hexes. If it matter, this is an ongoing game where I switched to the new version either this turn or the previous turn (can't remember which).

[xhoel]

@VigaBrand: Yes I saw the changes made to said values and I am aware of them. This changes nothing from the fact that you can hold hexes even against 10:1 odds with 0 penalty just because the game says so which is an artificial change.

I am saying that I am for the rule in theory but it needs to be tweaked a lot. This current blank rule needs to go. Also I am not sure that holding a certain hex will bring more late war games. That is quite a bold statement. I never knew a GC that stopped because a hex fell.

@morvael: I specifically cited the battle of the city itself in 1942 which lasted 4 weeks, the same as in my AAR. If you take a look you will see that I besieged the fortress for the same amount of time as the Germans did.

You won't be nabbing at anything with the new rules since both hexes in front of Sevastopol are at level 4 and with the new rules a German player will not be able to do anything against them in 1941. Once 1942 arrives, you will need to commit so many units to simply take the two hexes not to mention capturing Sevastopol itself.

Your claims of bombing the port to decrease its efficiency are way off. After 4 weeks of constant attacks Sevastopol was at 65+ damage in my game and that had 0 effect in reducing the effectivness of the defenders. When the city actually fell, 50.000 men and around 800 guns were evacuated to safety leaving the Germans with their thumbs up their a**. Not a single Soviet soldier was lost in what should have been a historical feat of a naval evacuation under heavy enemy fire and with the Germans breathing down on their necks. Would be nice to see those units surrender (at least some of them) and not just magically teleport to a random location to fight another day.

Leningrad was never properly assaulted but besieged. Stalingrad and Sevastopol are the only cities that actually had to hold back constant attacks and were turned into strongholds.

How can you say that the old rules were unable to replicate this when you have not even taken a look at the examples I provided? Also please explain to me why rough and mountain terrain need to benefit from the no retreat rule? I understand Light and Heavy Urban terrain but what hill or mountain became a fortress?

And please tell me this: If 50.000 Soviets can hold onto Sevastopol for 4 turns against a whole German field Army that has the best divisions, an astounding number of Pioneer Battalions, Multiple artillery pieces, a whole Fliegerkorps to their aide and the best commanders in the German Army in version 1.11.03 how long will they hold Sevastopol under the new version where in order to remove the no retreat rule you need to drop fort levels to level 1? 2 months? 3 months? And can you wholeheartedly say that this is realistic or intended?

To reiterate again: I understand your intention and I agree that seeing such heavily fought over cities will be a nice addition. But the way you are trying to implement it, is not the right way to go. A lot of tweaks need to be made and a lot of testing should be done before this feature is properly implemented.

@SpeedKat: If engineers and arty are doing good against forts I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. My problem with the change is that I have seen how hard it is to crack heavy/light urban hexes with good fort levels and decent defenders (Leningrad, Tula, Voronezh) and how extremely hard it is to crack Sevastopol against a determined Soviet defense. Not to mention all the testing I have done on taking such hexes. So you can understand I am sceptical to a change that further favors the defenders even more, making the taking of such hexes almost impossible.

I think I have written enough to explain my case on this matter and given enough examples that you can easily check with both text and screenshots in my AAR. I welcome answers and replies and am always open for a discussion. At the end of the day my goal is to see the game work realistically without favoring any side, which I am sure is the same thing you @morvael and the other posters are trying to achieve.

Cheers!

[chuckfourth]

There was a comment made that the Fortress battle new rule can be ameliorated by using some heavy mortars.
This highlights a relevant and fundamental problem with the game I've already raised, but to no avail. That whether or not a particular artillery unit participates in a particular battle is random.
That is unbelievable, unrealistic and of course favors the Soviets as it helps to grind down the better quality German units that little bit quicker.
I would suggest that glaringly obvious, easily fixed, fundamental issues like random artillery should be resolved before resorting to top down, arbitrary, complex, unnecessary rules implemented to accommodate an incorrect view of history, i.e. I don't think it is good policy to recreate a new rule for fortress battles on the basis that they took much longer than they actually did.

[thedoctorking]

On turn 2 of a 41GC, as the Soviets, I'm seeing a lot of German units with -1 Supply Path reported even though they are clearly within 100 movement points of an Axis rail head. Is this WAD? It's a server game, against Model, so I don't think I can send a save file, but maybe you can look at it from your end.

[thedoctorking]

Also, is it WAD that airbases and HQ's appear to be surrendering rather than displacing? I've got several of them reorganizing on the east edge of the map.

[morvael]

ORIGINAL: thedoctorking

Also, is it WAD that airbases and HQ's appear to be surrendering rather than displacing? I've got several of them reorganizing on the east edge of the map.

Yes, they are now destroyed as other units (which means HQ SU are no longer rescued for free). But they rebuild for free (no AP cost).

[morvael]

ORIGINAL: thedoctorking

On turn 2 of a 41GC, as the Soviets, I'm seeing a lot of German units with -1 Supply Path reported even though they are clearly within 100 movement points of an Axis rail head. Is this WAD? It's a server game, against Model, so I don't think I can send a save file, but maybe you can look at it from your end.

I don't have access to server saves. Will have to wait for some other example.

[morvael]

ORIGINAL: chuckfourth
This highlights a relevant and fundamental problem with the game I've already raised, but to no avail. That whether or not a particular artillery unit participates in a particular battle is random.

Would being able to attach artillery to combat units like to fort units help to solve that issue?

[morvael]

ORIGINAL: petertodd

Here is a dropbox link to a save at start of Soviet turn (I hope it works!)

Saved Game Link

I can see the file but I'm unable to download it.

edit: managed to download.

[morvael]

ORIGINAL: petertodd
The problem can be reproduced as follows:
- Load the saved game
- Move 9-14 unit from X89-Y46 to X88-Y48.
- Attack the 13=8 unit in X88-Y49 with the stack in X89-Y50.
The German unit retreats the wrong way every time I have tried it. In playing a couple of turns with the new version I have noticed several instances where German units preferred to retreat to an unoccupied hex in a Soviet ZOC over a German-occupied hex (less than 3 units) not in a Soviet ZOC. It appears to me it is avoiding retreating to German occupied hexes. If it matter, this is an ongoing game where I switched to the new version either this turn or the previous turn (can't remember which).

Thanks for the save. I was able to fix the problem quickly.

[morvael]

petertodd, wasted a bit of time trying to find out why NBAD in your save has black icon [:)]

[morvael]

As for the forts - I'll need hard data from longer running games (once critical issues will be ironed out), not opinions. There are only a few high level fortifications at scenario start (Odessa, Sevastopol) in places that should defend longer (or finally be made worthwhile to defend) than I have seen from my experience. To achieve high levels anywhere else (except level 3 in high urban) will require tremendous effort - lots of time, construction points, fort units, tens of thousands tons of supply. This should give something in return. I want to stress that tweaks are not out of the question.

[GPT55]

ORIGINAL: morvael

petertodd, wasted a bit of time trying to find out why NBAD in your save has black icon [:)]

Sorry about that. I do set their color to black sometimes to make them easier to find when I want to do some night bombing. Glad to hear you were able to resolve the actual problem.

[thedoctorking]

ORIGINAL: morvael

ORIGINAL: thedoctorking

Also, is it WAD that airbases and HQ's appear to be surrendering rather than displacing? I've got several of them reorganizing on the east edge of the map.

Yes, they are now destroyed as other units (which means HQ SU are no longer rescued for free). But they rebuild for free (no AP cost).

It would be nice if, when they got killed, they came back as STAVKA armies. Reorganizing your fronts in this game is horribly difficult because of the outrageous cost in AP to reassign an HQ to a different HHQ. In fact, Soviet armies often came back in second reorganizations as parts of different fronts.

[morvael]

Sure, that needs to be fixed. They will return as STAVKA.

[xhoel]

ORIGINAL: morvael

As for the forts - I'll need hard data from longer running games (once critical issues will be ironed out), not opinions. There are only a few high level fortifications at scenario start (Odessa, Sevastopol) in places that should defend longer (or finally be made worthwhile to defend) than I have seen from my experience. To achieve high levels anywhere else (except level 3 in high urban) will require tremendous effort - lots of time, construction points, fort units, tens of thousands tons of supply. This should give something in return. I want to stress that tweaks are not out of the question.

I'm pointing you to where the data is and giving you arguments why the rule should be changed. Go and take a look. AFAIK my AAR is the first that showed a proper battle for Sevastopol like it was fought historically, since most of the time the Axis will simply ignore it and won't try to capture the city because of how hard it is to do so or the Soviets will decide to abandon it, because they don't deem the city to be important enough, not because it is hard to defend. So don't punish the offensive player because the game has no incentive for the Soviets to hold Sevastopol.

The whole point is that you can defend those places longer if you commit proper forces. They already have bonuses from terrain and fort level, not to mention the new rules that count fort level above 3.10 as double dense so any player that is reaching the 2:1 odds is already commiting a lot of forces to get those kind of odds. Sevastopol in my game had a defensive CV of 5.000 (2 Mountain Divisions and 1 Guard Rifle Corps, defending a rough level 5 fort) for Christ sake. If you want to make such places worthwhile to defend, add an actual incentive for the Soviets to defend them eg VP and not some blank rule about no retreats even after you have reached the odds that are needed.

And since you talked about the historical campaign, the Germans took 90.000 prisoners from the Battle of Sevastopol. With the current displacement rules, Soviet units defending the port will simply rout and won't lose a single man if they are finally forced to retreat. Defending a high level port is every players dream. Maybe that should be fixed so that the Axis player has at least 1% interest in going for Sevastopol.

Odessa was a Rumanian operation and you can easily recreate it in game by prohibiting German forces from taking part in the attack. Leningrad was never properly assaulted and was not even properly cut off since the Soviets could still get supplies in the city. You still have given no reason why this new no retreat rule applies to mountain and rough hexes even though I directly asked you to.

[morvael]

I'm not sure they will rout with the new code, it won't pick offset move path over water

It's possible I'll tie bonus engineer strength multiplier to final odds multiplier (so forts will drop faster with very high odds, which will solve the problem of placing very weak defenders inside).

[xhoel]

Here is the best unit in the Soviet Army, outnumbered 42:1 in men and they still hold the port. Look at the odds 470:1. Engineers at 184 and Arty at 72. Look at the fort drop, only 0.06 drop.